Spend any time on an e-bike and it’s not long before someone calls you a cheat. The notion of self-sacrifice, of pushing through pain, is so tied up with cycling’s colourfully masochistic past that the idea of a bike that will do some of the work for you – that would make it easier – is total anathema. The great champion Fausto Coppi was clear about this: “Cycling is suffering,” he said.

And yet so much of cycling is about cheating. I’m not saying it’s all doping, blood transfusions and asthma medication (though clearly there are problems here), but the essence of racing is to make your bike move faster than the next person’s. Bikes, therefore, are as light and aerodynamic as possible; riders slipstream whenever they can. This is all done to save energy, to make it easier, which sounds to me like cheating by any other name.

Sam Pilgrim knows all about this. He’s one of the world’s most gifted pro free riders. His speciality is carving down mountain sides and hanging in thin air, having taken off from a high-speed muddy ramp. When he moved to an electric mountain bike, he “got a lot of hate from other riders”. But that’s changing. People are now seeing how much more riding time he gets. “I can do so many more descents,” says Sam. “The best thing about an e-bike is, obviously, that you can have the sickest ride of your life, then just go back up to the top and do it again. Most bike parks in the UK don’t have lifts. But with one of these bad boys that doesn’t matter.”

The bad boy Sam is talking about is the Haibike XDuro Allmtn. Bad boy is a bit of an understatement. It’s an all-out assault vehicle that looks like it’s ready for a starring role in Robot Wars. The bike is huge. The handlebars are so wide you feel as if you are doing a swallow dive as you plunge downhill. This width gives you stability on the tightest of corners, but makes it a nightmare when squeezing your bike through the front door and down the hallway after a ride. The bike comes with a whopping 150mm of suspension travel which means it flattens mountains into molehills. The front shocks are so juicy you can ride straight over a kerb and hardly notice it.

The big drawback of an e-bike is the added weight – and this Haibike is totally unapologetic about its extra pounds. It’s a titanic 25kg – some road racing bikes are only 7kg. By adding a motor, battery and suspension, the frame in turn needs to be beefed up. On top of this the brutal treatment most Haibikes are going to be exposed to on the trail means they have to be made to cope with the toughest of love. The only concessions are the wafer-thin saddle and the finger-light gear levers.

The beating heart of this beast is the powerful Bosch motor. The 500Wh battery is neatly integrated into the down tube. It features Zero Cadence so the moment you start turning the pedals it adds power to each stroke. How much assistance you want is up to you: choose between walk, eco, trail and turbo. Any will get you back to the top, where the fun starts all over again.

Read all about it

This is the perfect book for a novice cyclist who’s getting to grips with a new bit of terminology or wants to brush up on various knowledge areas.This month the Bluffer’s Guide series makes a return to our bookshelves with an entirely new look and feel. Requiring minimum effort to digest, yet delivering maximum credibility to the reader The Bluffer’s Guides are both informative and entertaining to read. They make a great starting point for understanding any topic. As well as a guide to cycling, there are Bluffer’s Guides to Beer, Wine, Dogs, Cats, Chocolate, Cricket, Horseracing, Fishing, Golf, Jazz, Opera, Management, SocialMedia, Etiquette and Brexit. The books are on sale at all bookshops at £6.99, bluffers.com